Chapter 13 Final Payment

Chapter 13 Final Payment

I filed for chapter 13 in August 2009. My 36th and final payment is set for September 1st 2012 (YAY!!!). I am assuming it will be posted September 4th due to the holiday. My monthly payments have been $465 and my balance due is $177.75. Due to the 30 day hold on all checks I send in, I have $1013.89 credit in my account to pay my monthly payments, more than enough for pay off. When I spoke with my attorney's paralegal, she said that even though I will be paid off, I still have to send in the monthly payments of $465 until I receive my discharge letter. Does this sound right to anyone? She said I will get all that money back, but if I don't send in a payment before I get the letter, they will find me in default. Has anyone else heard this? It looks like it's been taking 3-4 months for people to get their discharge letters, and I don't really have an extra $1700 to pay them until I get my letter. Just wondering if anyone else has been told this??? Thanks in advance!

Re: Chapter 13 Final Payment

You are supposed to pay until you get the release of wage order (even though you pay on your own) not your discharge papers. The trustee is supposed to send that out when you make that last payment. I'm not sure how your district works, but for me if you send in a personal check they will hold it for 30 days which will delay the closing of your case by those many days. So the last months payments, which for me was in August, I sent in money orders. The only thing is that my July payment wound up posting in August anyway so now instead of my case closing at the end of August, it won't close until October. I also called my trustee and she told me what was due so that is what I sent. I don't plan on sending in anymore payments .

I would say give your trustee a call and see what he/she says. My trustee was very responsive and happy to help me.

Re: Chapter 13 Final Payment

Thank you for your responses! I called my trustee and they said that I have to keep paying until I get my discharge papers and that it will take 304 months to receive those. She said that they have so many cases that it takes a while to determine that all parties have been properly paid. As of September 1st, my balance owed is $0.00 and my balance on hand is $813, but the trustee said I still have to send in the entire payment amount each month until I receive my discharge papers or I will be in default and I will have to start my entire 36 months over again. I certainly hope she was just trying to scare me so I will keep paying them each month, bc that would SUCK. It's not like I have another 17K laying around. At any rate, it feels good to have a zero balance. Good idea on the money order thing, I think I will do that for the Sep payment if I have to make one, but I will wait until the last week of Sep to mail it in. I hate waiting. :-)

Re: Chapter 13 Final Payment

Here I am, still waiting. My balance owed was officially $0 on Sept 1st, but I had to pay Sep and Oct payment due to what my trsutee told me. My balance on hand is $1752. I was hoping that I would get my letter and refund before Christmas, but it's not looking good. I have money set aside to make my Nov payment if I don't get anything by 23 Nov. I just don't understand why it takes so long and why I have to keep paying them if I have so much money in my account. :-(

Re: Chapter 13 Final Payment

OhioChick wrote:

Here I am, still waiting. My balance owed was officially $0 on Sept 1st, but I had to pay Sep and Oct payment due to what my trsutee told me. My balance on hand is $1752. I was hoping that I would get my letter and refund before Christmas, but it's not looking good. I have money set aside to make my Nov payment if I don't get anything by 23 Nov. I just don't understand why it takes so long and why I have to keep paying them if I have so much money in my account. :-(

Sorry, just had to whine.

No you are not whining at all. What is going on is just nuts. But I believe that there is some terminology mix up going on here. First of all your discharge paper is what you will get once the audit is done and they determine that all of the payments to your creditors have cleared the bank and that no one objects (slim to none chance of this happening). What you are waiting on is your notice of preparation for discharge. In that letter it should state what the next steps are as well as the the termination of payments required.

If your trustee is anything like mine, if you sent in anything other than a money order for your last couple of payments, then they hold the payments for 30 days for clearing. So lets say you made a payment by check on Oct 15th, well they are going to wait 30 days plus till the 1st of the following month to close your case out. So the earliest that they can close your case based on that payment is Dec 1st. If you sent a money order then they should be able to close it out on Nov 1st.

To give you an example of what happened with me. I made a payment by check on August 15th (silly me). I made the final payment by August 28th by money order but since I they were going to hold that August 15th payment for 30 days, So they closed my case in 13datacenter on 9/16 but I didn't receive the letter of notice of preparation until October 10th which said that I didn't need to make anymore payments. I got my final discharge paper on 11/5/12.

Re: Chapter 13 Final Payment

Hi Rhaeny,

I made my Sep and Oct payments with a money order, so no 30 day hold. I checked on datacenter13 and my status is listed as S-NPOC*******. I have talked to both my attorney and the trustee's office and they both say that I have to keep making my payments until I get my letter saying no more payments are required. My final payment was sent out 1 Sep 12, but my Aug payment was made with a check, so the 30 day hold would have been 1 Oct 12. Right now I have $1750 in my balance on hand. Just not understanding the process if they aren't making payments to anyone anymore.

I have not received a notice of preparation and Pacer doesn't have anything regarding a closing date.

Re: Chapter 13 Final Payment

Hi Rhaeny,

I checked Pacer this morning and my status has been changed to "Awaiting discharge." 13 Datacenter still shows S-NPOC. I wonder if something is going to start happening soon. Makes me wonder why I haven't gotten the letter yet saying I can stop making payments though??? Would that be on Pacer?

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